Mms proposed updates

These are my proposed updates, mostly reflecting the things that I've been doing without documenting them. Feel free to tear them apart. I'll annotate changes that I think need explanation.
"Soft" 80 would be my preference. I think putting the _why_ in here is good. It's not 80 just cause. It's 80 because we believe that promotes healthy coding practice. And the reason it's "soft" is because there are exceptions (like @freerobby pointed out). Use best judgement.